


its not rocket science, its burglary

by 1001cranes



Series: Nemo - Phoenix Fields [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Evil, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 00:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14413614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/pseuds/1001cranes
Summary: The guy’s name is Julian Silver.He’s the smuggling con man sort of criminal, though not as dangerous as his reputation and wanted poster might suggest.He’s a mess.





	its not rocket science, its burglary

Their first meeting isn’t exactly fated. Certain types of people who do certain types of work hang out in certain types of bars. Julian is hot. Julian is broken. Nemo is there.

Chance.

That’s all.

| |

“Tell me about yourself,” Nemo says, and people do. Usually more than they meant to and more than they’re told anyone else. Sometimes even more than they’ve ever admitted to themselves. 

Their reactions afterwards are almost always what you’d expect: shame, fear, pain, anger, sadness. Then acceptance, or denial. Some want to drink, or talk, or fuck, or fight, or any possible combination of the four, as if that’s going to cure whatever gaping wound they’ve got caught rotting up inside them. Sometimes Nemo gets a good bit of information from someone, but blackmail -- good, proper blackmail -- takes too long, so it’s usually the fight and/or fuck.

He’s probably going to get at least one of the two from the guy in the corner. 

| |

The guy’s name is Julian Silver. 

He’s the smuggling con man sort of criminal, though not as dangerous as his reputation and wanted poster might suggest.

He’s a mess. 

“I failed them,” he says. Something clicks in his throat. “The worst part is how badly I failed them.”

Turns out he’s much more interested in the fuck.

| |  

If Nemo’s honest, people are mostly boring. Pedestrian. It’s the same old vices committed the same old ways and people making the same stupid mistakes that people the whole world over make. Just because Nemo can’t remember every individual one he’s heard doesn’t mean he can’t recognize they’re more or less the same. 

At first glance the most unusual thing about Julian is that he wants to keep his shirt on the entire time, and even that’s far from the weirdest thing Nemo’s ever been asked. 

| |

Julian wakes up with a shadow lurking in the back of his mind. Not the dark thoughts that surface after a nightmare. Not even the depressive cloud that’s usually skulking around just inside him. This is different.  _ It’s _ different. He’s somehow certain it’s not entirely of his own making.

He doesn’t remember what happened last night, but not because he blacked out. Julian knows blackouts: he remembers everything right up until he doesn’t, and he’d be heaving his stomach contents up by now if this had anything to do with alcohol.

He remembers the bar. He remembers drinking. He even remembers stumbling up to the room. He just can’t remember why. Julian has too many friends to stay in skeevy inns without good reason, so -- who.  _ Who _ must be the reason, of course  _ who _ . He just can’t remember who it was. He can’t remember who. 

It lurks in the corner of his mind as he gets up and dresses. The thought as wispy as smoke, spinning just on the edge of recognition.

| |

Julian is in a bar. Julian is in the bar again. He’s having the strangest sense of deja vu. Not the normal, faintly painted over kind that comes from visiting the same shithole type of bar with watered down beer and cranky barkeeps you can find in any city in the world. No. Something is nagging at him. Something is  _ wrong _ . He was too slow to credit that feeling the last time it might have counted, but he’s learning. 

He looks. He does his best to  _ really _ look, like he were casing the place, or trying to suss out which of the employees has the information he needs, or who at a party was lonely enough to be latched on to. Who’s weak. Who’s strong. What doesn’t quite fit. 

Come on. “Come on,” he mutters, not quite quiet enough, not quite under his breath. What doesn’t  _ fit.  _

There’s not a lot of light in a bar like this, so Julian doesn’t realize immediately, but the man in the corner - the cloaked man, the man wearing the dark tatty cloak with ragged edges --  _ that _ man doesn’t have a shadow.

| |

That guy from last night is here. The con man. The smuggler. Julian. 

He’s looking at Nemo.  
  
He’s looking _ at Nemo _ . 

For a moment Nemo thinks about leaving, but -- well, to be honest, he doesn’t remember anyone remembering him before. It’s been awhile since someone even vaguely recognized him. Familiarity is not something Nemo gets to feel. 

“What do you want?" he asks, and he pushes so Julian can't lie.    
  
"Whatever you did to me," Julian says. "Just do it again."

Nemo tilts his head. It looks as if he’s seeing something just beyond Julian, or trying to hear something just out of earshot. 

After a moment he smiles. 

“Only if you take your shirt off this time.”

| | 

Nemo’s still there in the morning. And so is the shade.

Something in Julian’s gut is screaming at him to run. To run until his legs are shaking too hard to hold him up, and then to hide until he can’t bear it. To break free of whatever thing hangs over him, stretching between him and Nemo. 

But his heart is still. And his mind is quiet. And he has been well and thoroughly fucked, so. 

He just lets the darkness settle. He is sick to death of running.

| |

Nemo’s never woken up next to the same person two mornings in a row. At least, he doesn’t think he has. And if perception is reality, well -- that makes Julian something both new and old. Interesting and familiar. 

Worth holding on to.

| |

“I was going to steal a tiara tonight,” Julian says, apropos of nothing. “Possibly two, depending on what was actually in the safe. Are you --”

“They’ll never see us coming,” Nemo says. He’s been tracing the rune on Julian’s chest for, oh, he’s not even sure how long. Minutes. Moments. Hours. “I can promise you that.”

| |

Julian is a pretty good con man. Nemo is an excellent thief. They wake up next to each other enough times that Nemo starts calling them partners. He looks at Julian with faint wonderment each time.

It’s a dangerous word. Julian has had partners before -- he had friends before, and family, and lovers. Then he spent years running from them and their consequences. Years of alcohol and violence and sex, with not enough delineation between the three. 

How funny, that Julian spent years chasing oblivion when Nemo could have been giving it to him all along. 

| |

“You’re very weird,” Julian says. He might be drunk. Maybe he’s just honest. Maybe Nemo wants him honest.

“I’m aware.”

“But I like it.”

“I’m aware of that too,” Nemo says, and there’s a wry twist to his mouth.

| |

There is eventually pillow talk, of a sort. Where they’re from, what has hurt them. The story behind this scar, that tattoo. 

Nemo has little to tell, as it turns out - he has no last name, no family, no history. No gods answer when he prays to them; he speaks only Common and Elvish, which is unremarkable enough. Hardly anyone remembers Nemo once he has walked away from them, but what does it matter when having a forgettable face and no past at all could hardly serve a thief better? 

Of the two of them, Julian has more tangible problems. The rune on his chest. The…. person attached to the other end. His problems breathe, and have to  _ keep  _ breathing. Elimination would be easy. Preservation is always another beast entirely, isn’t it? 

“But we can fix that,” Nemo says. “I’m sure there are plenty of ways we can fix that.” 

And it turns out there  _ are _ a number of ways to keep someone alive forever, if imprisoning them isn’t a problem.

It’s not, as it turns out. Julian doesn’t care at all.  He knows he cared, once. There were very specific reasons he cared, reasons that made him happy, reasons that hurt. The flat glaze over both, the hurt and the happy, make it all seem less important. He doesn’t know if he made up his own mind or Nemo did it for him, but either way, he’s grateful. It’s certainly more peaceful. 

| |

Nemo doesn’t remember losing his ears. He knows he had them at some point. And then he didn’t. The transition between the two escapes him, as it so often does. Point A. Point D. A few steps missing in between. 

He doesn’t remember cutting them off. And in all fairness, they don’t even  _ look  _ as though they’ve been cut off. They look as though they were never there at all. As if it were perfectly natural to be a human with no ears. 

“I need to grow my hair out,” he says, frowning at himself in the mirror. 

Julian makes an absent-minded sound of agreement. 

| |  
  
Time passes. Some amount of time passes. With Rhys in the mirror Julian doesn’t age, and Nemo doesn’t seem to either, so that can be a little…. tricky. Nemo leaves less and less of a mark on the world, and the more he fades, the quicker others agree to their terms, the more clearly and honestly they speak. The less they remember once Nemo leaves. People call him Julian’s Shadow when they call him anything at all. 

They have so much power. They are so  _ feared _ . 

“What if I forget,” Julian asks. Whispers. He’s afraid to even say it out loud. “What I forget you?” 

There’s a certain irony in Nemo being the one thing he wants to remember. 

“I'll put it back in," Nemo says, carding his hands through Julian's hair. "Put it all back in. Make you believe it, like you never even forgot." It’s easy enough to look into Julian’s eyes every morning and see how empty they are.

It is love, of a sort.  
  
  
  
  
  


https://open5e.com/equipment/magic-items/mirror-of-life-trapping.html


End file.
